


feral

by MarbledOpalescence



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, spoilers up through season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21959644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbledOpalescence/pseuds/MarbledOpalescence
Summary: Feral: having escaped from domestication and become wild~~Julia Montauk had lived a soft life, until, one day, she didn't.
Relationships: Trevor Herbert & Julia Montauk
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	feral

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift for @shackleyskidd on tumblr as part of the TMA Secret Snickerdoodle exchange! I had a _lot_ of fun writing this one, so I hope you enjoy!

The first time Julia Montauk sees a dead body is when she is twelve years old. She stands in the doorway of the shed, chest heaving as the effort of her panicked run across the yard slowly leaves her body. Her father is kneeling, a heart in his hand and a man on the ground in front of him. She can feel the presence of some thing behind her and she dares not turn around. Her father stabs the heart and all at once the eerie blue glow is gone, and with it the presence. He whispers an apology and then is gone, taking the life she had known with it. Later, people will press her, asking questions about her father, what he’d done with the bodies, how had she not known what he was doing? (She was only a little girl, even through all of this. No mother and now no father too. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do, just that she was all alone now.)

~~

The second time Julia Montauk sees a dead body is when she is nineteen years old. It is a quiet affair, no one really wants to be seen attending a serial killer’s funeral, but he was still her father after all of that. He looks peaceful lying in the casket, his eyes closed and his arms crossed. They’d let her see him like this one last time, before they cremated him. He had asked for that, apparently, not that she blamed him. He’d left so many bodies of his own behind, she could understand not wanting to leave his own behind to rot, lying still and in the dark for eternity. She shudders at that thought, being locked in the dark like that forever with no escape. She was the only one left standing at the grave when it was all done. She knows it's empty, just a piece of stone with his name on it, but her heart still clenches looking at it. It feels more final, somehow. She really is alone. It’s late afternoon by the time she leaves the graveyard, but it’s already growing dark and she can feel something looking at her from the treeline. When she turns there is nothing there but the feeling remains. She hurries to her car and doesn’t turn off her lights that night.

~~

The third time Julia Montauk sees a dead body is when makes one herself. She’s tried to build a life, tried to move on, but it’s been so hard. Anyone who gets close eventually finds out about her father and then they leave. She works nights now, too. It’s quiet, and as long as she leaves the lights on it isn’t bad. Until it is.

Julia Montauk is twenty-eight years old the first time she kills a man. Later, she isn’t so sure he was a man at all, but in the moment all she sees is Darvish, grappling with an old man on the floor, and the tattoo on Darvish’s chest… She stabs him, again and again, the taste of salt and anger in her mouth as she strikes, shaking off the chill of that cold dark water. The blood rises in her ears, and she sees red, the only thing in focus that symbol. Finally she comes back to herself, breathing heavily. Without exchanging a word (there will be time for words later), she and the old man finish off the rest of the monsters. She walks out alongside him, and never goes back.

~~

Julia Montauk loses count of how many dead bodies she sees after a while. It’s good, it feels _good_ , doing this. She’s keeping the world safe from the monsters they don’t even know about. Trevor at her side, she isn't alone anymore. It's an odd feeling, unfamiliar, but she gets used to it. They balance each other out, her and Trevor, and it...it's nice, it's good, having someone to watch her back again. She likes the hunt, the way it calls to her when they have new scent, the thrill of the chase, and the exhilaration of the final kill. (She wonders if her father felt the same way, sometimes. It's usually late at night that these thoughts creep in, when she's laying in the dark and feeling herself alone again. Then Trevor will shift in the car next to her, muttering something in his sleep, and she'll be back)

~~

Five years later and Julia Montauk is away across an ocean from her past, tracing down a lead of a wolfman in the wilds of North America. The continent is so much bigger, big enough that you could drive for days and never see the ocean, that sometimes she feels lost. A small speck against that big canvas. Those feelings never last long, though. Bigger spaces means a longer chase, means more monsters to hunt. She revels in this too. Bigger spaces means she never has to feel trapped again.

They track down Trevor's lead and decide to stay for a while. That damned man in a book comes in handy. (Being trapped in a book like that serves him right, she thinks. He served the entities she hunts and now suffers for his trouble, but she. She is _free_.)(She doesn't think about how tied she is to the hunt, doesn't think about how tight her bond is to Trevor, keeping her close to him.) Until that Archivist comes along. They should have just killed him, she thinks later, but he'd been useful for a little while. Until he manages to escape them, taking the damned page with him.

~~

Julia Montauk is thirty-six the next time she steps foot in the country of her birth. It took a year after the Archivist had run away until they were able to get back. (Home wasn't the right word, not anymore. Could you have a home, really, if the road, the chase was always calling to you?) They'd followed the scent to the Archives, the Eye's seat of power. It had taken them longer than she had liked to get an opening, but they still got in. Then they find that the Archivist has burnt the damned page (unlike him, unlike the Eye, she might think later. She doesn't.). She thinks that since he ended that man, it would be fitting to end him too. One less monster in the world.

Until the thrice damned Hunter interferes. She smells the woman first, a scent similar to her own but oh so different. The Hunter looks thin and weak, and Julia can smell the dirt on her, but the Hunter doesn't stand down. So they leave. They aren't prepared for a fight today, so they slink like coyotes away from a lone wolf.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments/kudos are appreciated, and I'm [marbledopalescence](marbledopalescence.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to drop by!  
> Happy holidays <3


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